Power outage in NJ
 

"Anthony" wrote in message ...
My power came back about 4am. I sat here in the dark and without a scanner
to listen to. I never had or even thought of a battery back up for my 780's.
My utility company, PSE&G, is on a 900mHz trunked system so I had no way to
monitor them. lessen learned, GET A BATTERY BACK UP!! I am so mad at myself
for not doing this from the start..
anyone out there have a nice battery back up source? I am open for ideas,
please pass them along.

Here's what I have - I have a standard lead acid car battery hooked up to a trickle charger and the scanners. It will run my
scanners non stop for DAYS if necessary. Any cheepie car battery will do (but get one that's brand new - don't get a used one)

The trickle charger keeps it peaked and when the power cuts out, the scanners don't even blink. It's the only way to fly. Even have
a portable TV that I can add into the mix if needed.

-noob

In article ,
says...
My power came back about 4am. I sat here in the dark and without a scanner
to listen to. I never had or even thought of a battery back up for my 780's.
My utility company, PSE&G, is on a 900mHz trunked system so I had no way to
monitor them. lessen learned, GET A BATTERY BACK UP!! I am so mad at myself
for not doing this from the start..
anyone out there have a nice battery back up source? I am open for ideas,
please pass them along.
thanks
Anthony




Find some kind of dry cell battery.
--
Dwayne
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BC895/

Sealed Gell-Cells, are much safer. Car batteries can give off fumes that
are explosive!

Bill Crocker


"Anthony" wrote in message
...
My power came back about 4am. I sat here in the dark and without a scanner
to listen to. I never had or even thought of a battery back up for my
780's.
My utility company, PSE&G, is on a 900mHz trunked system so I had no way
to
monitor them. lessen learned, GET A BATTERY BACK UP!! I am so mad at
myself
for not doing this from the start..
anyone out there have a nice battery back up source? I am open for ideas,
please pass them along.
thanks
Anthony

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003 18:47:13 -0400, "Anthony"
wrote:

My power came back about 4am. I sat here in the dark and without a scanner
to listen to. I never had or even thought of a battery back up for my 780's.
My utility company, PSE&G, is on a 900mHz trunked system so I had no way to
monitor them. lessen learned, GET A BATTERY BACK UP!! I am so mad at myself
for not doing this from the start..
anyone out there have a nice battery back up source? I am open for ideas,
please pass them along.
thanks
Anthony

I currently have four handheld scanners, including a trunker, and I
keep plenty of fresh AA alkalines around for them. However, for stuff
that runs on 12 volts DC, look in the stores for those sealed
lead-acid batteries they sell for people to jumpstart cars with. The
one I have has a 17 amp hour battery, charger is built in so you take
your basic garden-variety extension cord and plug it into the unit and
into the wall and wait until the green light comes on to indicate that
it's fully charged. Not only will it start your car if you have a dead
battery, it'll run a scanner or a solid state shortwave receiver or
5-watt ham rig for a week (unless the ham is really long-winded).]

A department store here went out of business not long ago, I got two
for the price of one. Sears sells 'em for just under $50. Better deals
on similar devices may be available in other stores/areas. They have a
cigarette-lighter type plug on them. I've seen more elaborate devices
by other manufacturers that have a built-in lantern, or a small air
compressor to pump up a tire, or even a DC-to-AC power inverter built
in. Price will vary with added features, of course.

73 DE John, KC2HMZ

I like gel cell batteries for backup use.

--


Remove "zz" from e-mail address to direct reply.



"Dwayne" wrote in message
.net...
In article ,
says...
My power came back about 4am. I sat here in the dark and without a
scanner
to listen to. I never had or even thought of a battery back up for my
780's.
My utility company, PSE&G, is on a 900mHz trunked system so I had no way
to
monitor them. lessen learned, GET A BATTERY BACK UP!! I am so mad at
myself
for not doing this from the start..
anyone out there have a nice battery back up source? I am open for
ideas,
please pass them along.
thanks
Anthony




Find some kind of dry cell battery.
--
Dwayne
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BC895/

Craig Davidson wrote:

Great idea. Car batteries are only about $25 at Wal-Mart. get whatever is
on sale.

Also you can get a cheap 110 volt inverter for about $39 in
the auto department if you have a 110 volt radio or laptop
that you want to use during the power failure.


Just a warning about cheap power inverters. Most of the cheap one
produce either a square wave or a very poor sin wave. Due to the
quality of the wave your scanner's powersupply will not be able to
filter out AC noise. You will get hum, interference, and possibly the
scanners CPU will not function.

In the case of the BC 780 you can hook them directly to your 12 volt car
battery. That is the best way to do it.

George
http://www.MilAirComms.com

I use TWO different backup batteries.
1. 12V 25Ah Gates Cyclon Rechargeable.
2. 12V 38Ah Panasonic Gel-Cell.

The 25Ah battery is connected to a 20Amp
Astron via a 25A reverse current protection diode.

The 38Ah battery is connected to a 35Amp
Astron via a 45A reverse current protection diode.

Each of the Astron's voltage was adjusted to provide
to float the batteries @ about 13.6V.

Each combo runs various 12V stuff in the shack.
When the power goes off, I don't notice it!

The 25Ah battery has been in continuous service
for almost 10 years and still delivers about 85% of
it's capacity. - YMMV!!

Agreed - I have a couple of Gel cells (an 18 Ah and a 24 Ah), both of which
are already wired up ready to be connected to the power distribution box I
have next to my power supplies - takes about 5 seconds to reconfigure the
distribution to feed from the batteries rather than from the power supply.
As I would also be running my amateur gear from the same power source in the
event of a blackout, this would probably not be sufficient, so I have the
option of running a lead from the car (or taking the secondary battery out
of it) to charge up the batteries inside. A small portable 1 KVa gennerator
is my next radio gear purchase.
One word of warning - do NOT overcharge sealed lead acid/gel cells as there
is the potential for them to explode (rare, but I have seen it) - make sure
that you use an automatic charger, i.e. one that can regulate the amount of
charge when the battery is charged.





Matt

"Bill Crocker" wrote in message
...
Sealed Gell-Cells, are much safer. Car batteries can give off fumes that
are explosive!

Bill Crocker


"Anthony" wrote in message
...
My power came back about 4am. I sat here in the dark and without a
scanner
to listen to. I never had or even thought of a battery back up for my
780's.
My utility company, PSE&G, is on a 900mHz trunked system so I had no way
to
monitor them. lessen learned, GET A BATTERY BACK UP!! I am so mad at
myself
for not doing this from the start..
anyone out there have a nice battery back up source? I am open for
ideas,
please pass them along.
thanks
Anthony

Here is what I use. It's a sealed lead acid battery I obtained
from a power plant. They use them to back up there computers
and periodically replace them whether they need to or not.

I bought the case from Wal-Mart and added the connectors
to match my power supply.

http://bellsouthpwp.net/k/d/kd5eis/Images/power.jpg


--
David M. Hitchner - K5DMH
Baton Rouge, LA

Baton Rouge Area Scanning
http://home.bellsouth.net/p/PWP-k5dmh

ASDS - Anti-Spam Defense System - Do not Auto-Reply
For replies, use my callsign @bellsouth.net or @arrl.net.

Artificial Intelligence is no match for Natural Stupidity!


"Anthony" wrote in message
...
My power came back about 4am. I sat here in the dark and without a scanner
to listen to. I never had or even thought of a battery back up for my
780's.
My utility company, PSE&G, is on a 900mHz trunked system so I had no way
to
monitor them. lessen learned, GET A BATTERY BACK UP!! I am so mad at
myself
for not doing this from the start..
anyone out there have a nice battery back up source? I am open for ideas,
please pass them along.
thanks
Anthony

Nice!

Bill Crocker


"David M. Hitchner" wrote in message
.. .
Here is what I use. It's a sealed lead acid battery I obtained
from a power plant. They use them to back up there computers
and periodically replace them whether they need to or not.

I bought the case from Wal-Mart and added the connectors
to match my power supply.

http://bellsouthpwp.net/k/d/kd5eis/Images/power.jpg


--
David M. Hitchner - K5DMH
Baton Rouge, LA

Baton Rouge Area Scanning
http://home.bellsouth.net/p/PWP-k5dmh

ASDS - Anti-Spam Defense System - Do not Auto-Reply
For replies, use my callsign @bellsouth.net or @arrl.net.

Artificial Intelligence is no match for Natural Stupidity!


"Anthony" wrote in message
...
My power came back about 4am. I sat here in the dark and without a
scanner
to listen to. I never had or even thought of a battery back up for my
780's.
My utility company, PSE&G, is on a 900mHz trunked system so I had no way
to
monitor them. lessen learned, GET A BATTERY BACK UP!! I am so mad at
myself
for not doing this from the start..
anyone out there have a nice battery back up source? I am open for
ideas,
please pass them along.
thanks
Anthony